I first visited Prague in 1971, just a few years after the Soviet invasion. It was like a living car museum with bat mobile Tatras... and cigarettes that could be bought singly (one at a time) and their great beer with no labels... and the churches packed... Very atmospheric... Everybody - 99.9% of Czeckoslvakian humanity - upon seeing I was a tourist - would sneak close and ask to buy hard currency (especially German Marks). Loudspeakers on the street making announcements and playing military music... pictures of Brevnev and Husak in every shop window... and (gulp!) some of the prettiest girls in the world.
Salute! Na sdravie (or something like that)
Yep, and I found the Czech people to be very cordial and pleasant.. and ditto on those beautiful women! The first phrase I learned there.. “Damci jeden pivo procim?” (May I have one beer please?”
The Czech Republic may be one of my top SHTF destinations, although I’ve heard Prague has pretty much become one big tourist trap.
1971 was also my first visit to the Czech Republic. My parents fled in 1950, and it was the first time they were permitted to come back on a visa as US citizens. My memories are more of family members I was meeting for the first time and grandparents whom I got to see for the second time in my life. (They were permitted to visit us once they were old and defection was no longer an economic loss to the state). Over the years I made a number of visits. There is simply no comparison between the dreary, oppressive socialist years and those of restored liberty. Before WWII, this was a highly educated and industrialized nation in the heart of Europe. The losses under socialism were great on many levels. Productive enterprises were expropriated or destroyed, families torn apart, historic structures demolished or neglected until they collapsed, young people denied higher education. The list goes on. Unfortunately, many of these injustices cannot be resolved during our earthly lives. I hope justice will be served in the next world.